Exactly what it Middle-earth??????

[Samwise_Gamgee]

OK, I know that the Middle-earth is where the hobbits and everyone lives, but what is it??? Country, continent, planet, what????????:confused: :confused: :confused: I'm confoosed!!!!!

[BurningHammer]

I always thought it was a planet

[Tanoliel]

Whoa...easy on the punctuation, there! Two or three is enough...:)
Middle Earth, I belive (any Tolkien experts reading this feel free to correct me) referred to the whole continent that contained the Shire, Minas Tirth, Moria, Rivendell, etc, etc, etc and so on. Bordered to the northwest by the Shire and part of the east by Mordor...because I'm pretty sure that Valinor, for instance, isn't technically part of "Middle Earth."
Anyway. Rambling...but I'm pretty sure that's what it is.
Welcome to the moot, btw!
-tano

[elf_princess]

Absolutely no idea!!! But I'd like to know myself!:confused:

[ragamuffin92]

I read years ago that Middle-earth was supposed to have been an earlier version of northwest Europe.

[Tanoliel]

Where did you read it? There have been lots of "allegories" found, and then other people think Tolkien didn't base it off anything, and well...not trying to shoot down your theory or anything. Just pointing that out...
-tano

[Ñólendil]

"Middle-earth", the name itself, it's a translation of older names that have actually been used by real historical cultures. You will find the word "Middle-earth" in various forms in old texts like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (a Middle English text) and the ancient Poetic Edda of Norse Mythology. The Norsemen believed that there were nine worlds and the one where we lived they called Midgard, because it was in the middle. Midgard = Middle-earth.

So Tolkien was merely following the tradition. His "Middle-earth" applies to all lands other than (when they were still on Earth) the Blessed Realm and Númenor. After Númenor sank and the Blessed Realm was removed from the Circles of the World, Middle-earth meant the whole planet, i.e., what we call Earth.

The events of the Lord of the Rings merely take place in the Northwest of the Old World, east of the Sea. It's just a very small part of Middle-earth.

[ragamuffin92]

Re: "Where did you read it? "
I don't recall, because I read it sometime during the previous century :); If I find the quote again, I'll post it here. (Maybe there's soemthing in "Letters," which I'm reading now) Since Middle-earth was supposed to be on THIS planet, it's not surprising that Tolkien used a vague version of early Europe as his setting. Not in an allegorical way, just in a general way--just as the Shire was modelled after rural England.

[Samwise_Gamgee]

Well, thanks for the info. I'm glad I'm not the only person that didn't know. That'd be really sad if they said somewhere in the beginning of FotR: "In the Shire, a part of the continent of Middle-earth..." Thanks!!! :)

[emplynx]

Middle-Earth was one of the two continents on Eä (That was the name of the world, I think) the other being Valinor, where the Valar (gods) and Elves live.

PS Please correct me if I am wrong.

[KGamgee]

I think that its really up to your opinion.
Middle Earth is a whole complex area, but there has to be other things....Frodo, Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Bilbo and the rest had to go somewhere from the Grey Havens.
But I never really thought about it.
Good question!
~KGamgee~

[Comic Book Guy]

Middle-Earth was one of the two continents on Eä (That was the name of the world, I think) the other being Valinor, where the Valar (gods) and Elves live.



The Name of the 'World' is Arda, Eä would be the name of the Universe, named Eä after Eru said the the word, meaning 'Be'.

[Findegil]

Ea was the Univers it meant something like "all that is real/has a boddily form" in contrast to God.
The Kingdom of Arda is equivalent to the Solarsystem.
The planet is called Embar (I think, not sure here).
In the beginnig their were three landmasses Valionr, Middle-Earth and the Land of the Son in the east. They were thundered by oceans. The one between Valinor and Middle-Earth was Belegar.
Later Middle-Earth was splited in at least two pieces that I would take as continents (like old Gondwan that was splited in all the 7 continents of to day).

That all applie to the flat-earth before the drowning of Numenor. After that at least Valinor was removed. Maybe only the northorn part of Middle-Earth was taken up into the new shap of the planet. And in the west were some New Lands added.

Hope that is helpfull
Findegil

[Laurenis]

theres a place in england... i think its near birmingham or something...my biology teacher was telling me about it; and its where Tolkien lived for a long time or around that area or something and all the countryside around there is what he thought of as the shire and u can go and do all these guided trips to all the places that he used in the shire and theres this big stream rivery thing and its supposed to be the brandywine or something and its where he got all the shire thing from... cool huh!

[Comic Book Guy]

theres a place in england... i think its near birmingham or something...my biology teacher was telling me about it; and its where Tolkien lived for a long time or around that area or something and all the countryside around there is what he thought of as the shire and u can go and do all these guided trips to all the places that he used in the shire and theres this big stream rivery thing and its supposed to be the brandywine or something and its where he got all the shire thing from... cool huh!

I believe it is fair to say that Tolkien was inspired by his youth in Yorkshire, I believe that the Shire is everything Tolkien liked about the English countryside. Though, nowadays, the English countryside is industrialised.

[Menelvagor]

"Middle-earth", the name itself, it's a translation of older names that have actually been used by real historical cultures. You will find the word "Middle-earth" in various forms in old texts like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (a Middle English text) and the ancient Poetic Edda of Norse Mythology. The Norsemen believed that there were nine worlds and the one where we lived they called Midgard, because it was in the middle. Midgard = Middle-earth.

Is that where that came from? Wow. I've always wondered what middle-Earth was in the middle of anyway.

[Laurenis]

Originally posted by Comic Book Guy


I believe it is fair to say that Tolkien was inspired by his youth in Yorkshire, I believe that the Shire is everything Tolkien liked about the English countryside. Though, nowadays, the English countryside is industrialised.

-- hey i live in yorkshire!! haha im not origionally FROM yorkshire so i cant really be called a yorkshire lass.. like they are... but i live here now. and yeh when you go to certain areas in yorkSHIRE it is definitely possible to imagine it being the shire.

[Legolas]

As I have seen from some maps, there are two continents in that world: Middle- Earth and Blessed realm. Middle-Easrth streches far north, east and south from where LotR takes place, and Valar lights are parts of ME.
The map is available here (http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo) . Go to image galleries, then select maps down below.

[Findegil]

Ohh, these maps are out of the old edition of David Days book. I wouldn't trust them at all. Even with the information available in his time Mr. Day made not a perfect job in drawing that map.:(
Look for the maps of Karen Wynn Fonstad. That is really research in geographical topics of Middle-Earth.;)
And if you own The History of Middle-Earth volume 4: The Shaping of Middle-Earth you will find there in The Ambarkanta with diagrams and maps of complete "planet" by JRR Tolkien himself. :)

Regards
Findegil

[Legolas]

I would love having HoME, but, unfortunately, it isn't available here in Lithuania. Only LotR is for sale. I have the Hobbit, but it's an old version (from even the Soviet times), and there aren't any Hobbit versions now :(

[RosieCotton]

Originally posted by Legolas
I would love having HoME, but, unfortunately, it isn't available here in Lithuania. Only LotR is for sale. I have the Hobbit, but it's an old version (from even the Soviet times), and there aren't any Hobbit versions now :(

Awww, that stinks for you. Maybe you can get it if you ever go on vacation.
~Rosie~

[ragamuffin92]

It took a while, but I finally found a Tolkien quote saying that Middle-earth was supposed to be part of THIS planet, and Europe (with some fairy tale imagination). Here is the quote, from "The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien," from letter number 165 (page 220 in the hard-cover edition).

"'Middle-earth', by the way, is not a name of a never-never land without relation to the world we live in...
And though I have not attempted to relate the shape of the mountains and land-masses to what geologists may say or surmise about the nearer past, imaginitively this 'history' is supposed to take place in a period of the actual Old World of this planet."

For those of you who don't know, "Old World" is what historians call Europe, as opposed to the "New World" (post-Christopher Columbus North, Central, and South America)

[Samwise_Gamgee]

Wow, thanks for telling me!!! =D I always did think that the map in the books looked a bit like Europe, but I wasn't sure...Thanks again!!!